NEWTON -- As law enforcement officials in New Jersey and Missouri continue to explore today how a fourth arrest made this week is connected to the kidnapping of a Sussex County pet food store owner, a “sluggish” but rebounding Jeffrey Muller returned to work.

William James Barger, 48, was arrested Monday after authorities obtained a search warrant and rummaged a home where he lives in Nevada, Mo., Vernon County Sheriff Ron Peckman said.

AP Photo/Lake Ozark Police DepartmentJeff Muller, 59, of Newton, was rescued in central Missouri Saturday after a convenience store employee spotted him struggling to escape from his captors. Muller appears in a photo provided by the Lake Ozark Police Department on Monday.

The arrest came four days after Muller, the 59-year-old owner of J&G Pet Foods Discount store in Newton, was Tasered, beaten and driven 1,200 miles to Missouri by three men who abducted him at gunpoint.

Muller, who authorities said was kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity, said thoughts of his wife and determination to see his grandchildren get married, compelled him to escape from his three captors.

“I had to see my grandchildren get married,” Muller said today. “That’s what gave me the go to break loose. That’s what saved my life.”

Barger’s arrest is in connection to a November home invasion, which authorities say is believed to be connected with Muller's kidnapping.

In that case, the same three suspects, armed and masked, shot the president of a construction company in the hand as they hunted for a man named Muller, Peckman said.

Barger, who was charged today in a Missouri court in the Nov. 9 incident, is accused of initiating that home invasion and having others carry it out, including the three men charged in the Newton kidnapping. Authorities said the perpetrators had gone to that Missouri home looking for a Jeff Muller, the complaint in Missouri states.

However, the Nov. 9 kidnapping in Missouri apparently was a case of mistaken identity, too, as there was no Jeff Muller at that home and no Jeff Muller lived there, Peckman said.

Barger lived with Stangeland and Wadel in Missouri, court papers say. The 48-year-old also claims to be the son of Hell's Angels founder Sonny Barger, though Peckman said authorities were not able to confirm if that was true.

All 11 charges against Barger are felonies, and include two counts of kidnapping, assault, armed criminal action, unlawful and illegal possession of a firearm and tampering with physical evidence, Peckman said.

He is being held in the Vernon County Jail, according to Peckman, who declined to release details about the suspect’s role but has said he was believed to be involved in Jeffrey Muller’s kidnapping.

Before Barger was detained at a house in Nevada, Mo., the town where one of the three alleged kidnappers lives, he removed a stash of firearms from the home he was living in and into a friend’s house in the same town, Peckman said.

Authorities recovered 16 firearms, including rifles, handguns and shotguns, as well as machetes, Peckman said.

The Associated PressFrom left, Douglas Stangeland, 46, Andrew Wadel, 21, and Lonnie Swarnes, 44, are being held without bond in Missouri's Miller County on charges of first-degree kidnapping.

In the November home invasion, the suspects allegedly burst into the home of Charles “Chuck” Scammell, the president of Hoffman Cortes Restoration, a construction company based in Kansas City, Mo., about 110 miles north of Vernon County.

Barger allegedly told the three suspects to restrain Scammel for a “substantial period of time.” Peckman said.

Authorities in New Jersey said they are looking into how Barger’s arrest is connected to Muller's kidnapping, said Newton Police Lt. Robert Osborn.

“We’re exploring a lot of different aspects in the case,” Osborn said. “We're not going to speculate until we have definitive answers.”

On Friday morning, the three men approached Muller in the parking lot of his store, Tasered him, and pulled him into a beige Chevy Malibu, taking him on a torturous 24-hour ride to the Ozark mountains of Missouri.

After the car broke down in the small town of Lake Ozark, Mo., Muller freed himself from the loosened plastic ties that bound him and ran.

The three men were captured Saturday, authorities said.

Muller, who remains under police protection, said today that he is thankful to the New Jersey and Missouri law enforcement officials who captured the men and brought him home.

He said he is particularly thankful to the convenience store clerk who dialed 911 when she saw Muller struggling with his captors, authorities said.